Film Club

KINO! Film Salon: Sisi & I

Filmstill: Sisi & Ich
© DCM Bernd Spauke

01/19/2025
2pm EST

Online

Details

Language: English
Price: Free admission
info@telescopefilm.com Registration is required for this event

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Co-presented with Telescope Film

KINO! Film Salon is a monthly online club to discuss films from Germany.
 
How it works: Each month we choose a German film currently available to stream on U.S. platforms, watch it independently, and come together for a hosted conversation with other fans of German cinema.

In our first session of 2025, we will be discussing Frauke Finsterwalder’s period drama Sisi & I, which stars Sandra Hüller as Countess Irma Sztáray, lady-in-waiting to Empress Elisabeth of Austria (Sisi), played by Susanne Wolff. The two women find sanctuary together on the Greek isle of Corfu, but their bond is put to the test when they return to the stuffy courts of Vienna.

KINO! Film Salon host Jim Kolmar calls the film “a ribald depiction of the relationship between the two women as they explore the bounds of freedom in Greece, distanced from the strictures of Austro-Hungarian society, and tempted to explore all the sexual shenanigans and associated debauchery that implies. Based on Irma’s real-life writings, the film has a delightfully playful quality that refuses to be hidebound by period accuracy. It’s cheekily entertaining, mischievous, and lavishly produced, satisfying the demands of true historical drama aficionados, and seducing those with a taste for the absurd. In other words, it’s an absolute riot.”

Sisi & I took home a German Film Award and Austrian Film Award for Best Costume Design. Frauke Finsterwalder also won the Bavarian Film Award for Best Direction.

Hosted by Jim Kolmar

Jim programs for SXSW and Trinidad & Tobago Film Festival, and was a founding committee member of Festival Internacional de Cine Tulum (FICTU). He has participated in numerous international festival juries, panels, and committees.
 
KINO! Film Salon is a production of Telescope Film, in partnership with the German Film Office.

Sisi & Ich
Dir. Frauke Finsterwalder
Germany/Austria, 2023
132 minutes
With Sandra Hüller, Susanne Wolff, Georg Friedrich